


A Nightmare In Deep Space

by GulJeri



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Movies 1984-1994), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Blood, Crossover, Death, Horror, Julian fucked up with a holoprogram, Violence, classic horror meets classic sci-fi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 09:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GulJeri/pseuds/GulJeri
Summary: Julian Bashir has been playing with a holoprogram based on an old-Earth horror franchise. Little did he know... that he would unleash a living Nightmare.





	A Nightmare In Deep Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cyrelia_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/gifts).



> I haven't written anything in awhile, let alone horror (horror was my first genre and I used to write it exclusively but we're talking 8+ years ago) so excuse me if this is a bit rusty. I really liked the idea of this and I hope I can do a good enough job! POV from various characters throughout the story. TW: Blood, violence, character death, horror.
> 
> I'm gifting this work to cyrelia-J because his art of Andrew Robinson as Freddy Krueger was not only amazing, but an inspiration for me writing this. :D

 

Hush little lobeling don't you cry,  
Freddy's gonna sing you a lullaby.

-x-

 

Quark leaned on his bar with his lips pursed into a tight line of annoyance. His bar was closed for the night, or it was supposed to be, but Bashir was taking his time languishing behind in one of the holosuites. Could Quark help it if he needed to ruin a man's fantasies for a few hours sleep a night? In another minute the holosuites would shut down automatically but it was still irritating to have customers lingering when Quark just wanted to count his latinum and then curl up in his bed for the night. If Bashir was lost in one of his ridiculous adventure games he would just have to start over another night. If he was interrupted out of another fantasy—well. He'd just have to retire to his quarters and take matters into his own hands, so to speak.

 

Quark shook his head.

 

Finally the lanky frame of the doctor was coming towards him, weaving around empty tables glowing eerily beneath the low lighting.

 

“Hurry up, doctor,” Quark called, “and take a turn that way,” Quark gestured towards the exit. He wasn't in the mood to entertain one of Bashir's often one-sided conversations. Not at this hour, and when he couldn't even recall the last time he'd actually gotten a decent nights sleep.

 

But Bashir came stumbling up to the bar anyway, his eyebrows slanted and pulled upwards, a little crease between them, a look of worry and a frown deepening the lines around his mouth before he began to speak. Quark refrained from sighing, but just barely.

 

“Quark,” Bashir began, but Quark cut across him, holding a palm outwards.

 

“If you're angry because you've been thrown out of your program--”

 

“No, nothing of the sort,” the doctor said, “it's just that there must be a glitch in that particular holosuite. Look,” Bashir held his arm out for Quark to see. The fabric was torn—no, it was burned through, singed black around the edges of the hole, and the skin beneath was an angry red welt. “I double-checked and the safeties were engaged. Yet somehow when I was pushed against a hot railing in my program, I was burned. Second degree and nothing a swipe of the dermal regenerator won't heal, don't worry.”

 

“I'm not worried—unless you're planning a lawsuit--” Quark's heart skipped a beat at the thought. He gripped the edge of the bar. “I'll have you know those holosuites are under routine maintenance checks to assure their safety! I don't want any problems,” Quark gave Bashir his best toothy smile which he hoped was appeasing enough. “I'll have my brother Rom take a look at it. He's around here somewhere... Rom!” Quark shouted.

 

“I'm not planning a lawsuit, Quark,” the worry was replaced on Bashir's face by a bit of amusement. “I was merely concerned. How could I be injured when all the safeties are on? Maybe I should ask Miles--”

 

Quark gave his head a little shake as Rom approached the bar with a wide grin and a towel slung over one shoulder, a tray of dirty mugs, cups, dishes, and empty bottles piled high.

 

“I said I'll have Rom take a look,” Quark repeated.

“I'm right here, brother!” Rom said, his eyes widening for a moment when the items on the tray swayed precariously. “I was only gathering all these things to dump into the reclaimation unit. After that I always make my rounds on the holosuites and clean those,” Rom wrinkled his nose, frowning deeply, squinting his eyes. “It's a nasty business. I should be paid extra to clean out those holosuites!”

 

“You're lucky I pay you at all,” Quark said, “and on the topic of holosuites, I need to you to check number six. There was a glitch,” Quark nodded towards the burn on Bashir's arm and Rom's eyes grew wide.

 

“I'm right on it!” Rom proclaimed, and sat the tray of dirty things down on the bar, and scurried away in his odd little waddle-walk.

 

“Hey, what about the...” Quark called, but his voice trailed off. He frowned at the pile of dirty items for the reclaimation unit. “I don't suppose you'd take this pile of junk to the reclaimation unit? I'd like to count my latinum and go to bed,” Quark said, wondering how he could bribe Bashir into doing this for him. He wasn't too keen on bothering with the more mundane aspects of running his bar. Clean-up was for his waiters or his brother to do.

 

“I'd better get to sickbay and take care of my burn,” Bashir said, with a little shake of his head in denial of the request.

 

“Well, I tried,” Quark said, glancing over moodily to the towering tray.

 

Meanwhile Rom was down on his knees in unit six with a panel in the wall of the unit open and spilling electric guts and what appeared to be rubbish out onto the floor. The various items were not trash, however, they were items Rom used to repair and patch together Quark's holosuites so his brother could run them as cheaply as possible.

 

“Well,” Rom said, his head half buried inside the open panel, scanning over wires, conduits, and cables, “at least repair work is interesting. I'd rather do this than clean. I bet Quark would appreciate me a little bit more if he knew the kind of work that goes into repairing these things, or keeping them clean! Yesterday I spent four hours—four hours!--in holosuite two scrubbing yridian gluk off the floor and walls! Who knew that one man and a pirated copy of Vulcan Love Slave 5 could produce so much gluk!” Rom frowned in disgust.

 

Of course the conduits and wires didn't speak back to him.

 

Nothing looked amiss with the bits that controlled the safeties. But he noted something else as he leaned in a bit further. Towards the back it looked like something gelatinous and shiny was coating the wall. It was difficult to see but shining the flashlight function from his personal padd he was surprised to find a bright green, gooey, substance squirming with maggots. Well, it wasn't gluk but he wasn't sure what it was.

 

He swiped the towel from his shoulder and reached to clean the gunk away but just as the towel nearly brushed it, it vanished.

 

Rom drew himself out of the wall and sat down for a moment, just staring.

 

He must just be tired and seeing things. Quark had been overworking all of them lately and Rom wasn't sleeping well. He gave a large yawn that made his eyes tear, and then peeked at the inside of the panel again. The back wall was still clear.

 

Still, something was wrong. The air was growing warm around him, even hot, yet a chill slithered down Rom's spine.

 

“Who... whose there?” Rom asked to the empty room. He wasn't even sure why he had asked—he hadn't heard or seen a person. It was just a feeling. A terrible, crawling, clenching sensation that someone was near—someone who should not be. “B-brother?”

 

An eerie chuckle filled the room.

 

“I'm not your brother, bitch,” the disembodied voice growled, “would you like to call for your Moogie? I called for her last night—while I was fucking her.” More laughter. The low lighting in the room flickered, and stayed even lower, and then slowly the light shifted to a red glow and it basked the room in a terrible red light as though there was blood on the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling.

 

Rom sprang to his feet and nearly tripped over the tangle of wires and odd bits that were pulled out of the wall and onto the floor. But then they tangled around his ankles as though they were alive and grasping at him.

 

Rom let out a high-pitched wail: the Ferengi cry of alarm. Once, twice, three times—as he fought and struggled with the wires snaking up his legs and clenching tightly holding him where he was. On the fourth wail, with the wires biting into his skin and twined up to his chest, Quark appeared in the doorway.

 

“Brother!” Rom cried, “help me!”

 

The writhing wires lifted Rom off of the floor and dangled him into the air.

 

“What an idiot,” Quark said, advancing slowly forward, “you can't do anything right, can you...”

 

“Brother! Brother g-get me down!”

 

Again the eerie laugh, but now it wasn't disembodied. It was coming out of the mouth of his own brother. A sadistic light overtook Quark's eyes. The tails of his coat grew into long tendril-like curls and a dirty red and green striped pattern worked it's way up from the very ends of the coat tails up to the collar as Quark continued to advance slowly, faster, and then he stood in front of Rom and looked up at him. He lifted one hand and wiggled his fingers—they turned into long knives and scraped together.

 

“They're not made of latinum, but they buy me exactly what I need,” the Quark figure chuckled, “is there a Rule of Acquisition for acquiring souls?”

 

The Quark figure opened his mouth and waggled his tongue lewdly.

 

“I... I don't think so...” Rom said, dangling from the wires, watching as the knives were lifted towards him—but just as the Quark figure reared back to slice at him with his terrible knife-claws, he vanished, and the wires drew him down towards the floor, slithered off of his body, and back into the wall.

 

“What's taking you so long?” Quark said, stepping into the holosuite.

 

“Wh—don't come near me!” Rom pushed himself away from Quark but that only trapped him against the wall. He gave a fearful squeak and sat there huddled and trembling.

 

“What's wrong with you?” Quark asked, kneeling nearby, but not touching, “Do I need to call doctor Bashir?”

 

Rom was breating harshly, trembling, he was still certain he could feel the wires around his body.

 

“Cuuuuuh-come closer, brother,” Rom said, glancing briefly to Quark's hand.

 

“I'm here,” Quark said, “what's the matter?”

 

Rom stared him in the eyes for several moments as if searching for something. Once he was satisfied he sighed, and finally he uncurled himself a bit, and the trembling began to subside.

 

“It really is you,” Rom sighed with relief.

 

“Of course it's me!” Quark placed a hand on his chest just below the garish glinting pin on his equally garish ascot.

 

“Well I... I wasn't sure. I think... I must have dozed off while I was checking this panel,” Rom said at last. “I... I uh... had a nightmare.”

 

Now that he realized what had happened he was glancing at Quark sheepishly.

 

“A nightmare?”

 

“Yeeees, a very bad one... you were wearing stripes,” Rom said.

 

“Yeah, that's a bad dream. I'd never wear stripes,” Quark said, barely refraining from rolling his eyes. He gave his brother a gentle tap to the side of the shoulder. “It's all fine now. We're both exhausted. Let's just go to bed. We can finish this in the morning. Hm?”

 

Rom nodded enthusiastically. He wanted to get out of the holosuite as soon as possible—dream or not he had no intention to remain there a moment longer.

 

When they reached their quarters, next door to one another, Rom paused and glanced to Quark who was pressing his fingertip to his lock sensor for entry.

 

“Brother?” Rom asked timidly, hunching his shoulders and bowing his head a bit.

 

“What is it?” Quark asked with a yawn.

 

“Coooould I... could I...” Rom paused, and then said the last words quickly just to get the out, running them all together, knowing Quark would think he was foolish. "Sleep with you tonight?”

 

“Sleep with me?” There was a faint whoosh as the door to Quark's quarters slid open. “Rom, we're not lobelings anymore. People might think something odd.”

 

Rom's eyes grew wide.

 

“Something odd? We're brothers!”

 

“People have very strange ideas,” Quark said, attempting to find any reason to dismiss him.

 

But then Rom looked so small and pathetic cowering near his door that Quark softened.

 

“Alright... but the next time you have a nightmare, you're on your own,” Quark said.

 

Rom grinned brightly and followed in after Quark.

 

Quark complained as Rom sang loudly in the sonic shower, while Quark stood at the sink and leaned into the mirror to sharpen his teeth for the night. He paused briefly to shoot a snarky comment at Rom.

 

“If you're going to sing a terrible song you could at least _try_ to sing it in key,” Quark said, and shook his head, then went back to sharpening his teeth.

 

Rom staying over for the night was going to bother his usual routine but Quark was really too tired to put up much of a fuss. After he'd finished his teeth, buffed out a few chips in his nails, and dressed in a pair of warm footed pajamas, Quark left the washroom and knelt in front of his little altar for the Blessed Exchequer. He'd only gotten part of the first line of his nightly prayer out when Rom came hurrying out, dressed in a pair of footed pajamas too, and knelt beside him touching his inner wrists together, hands cupped open.

 

“Don't interrupt me while I'm asking for a blessing,” Quark hissed.

 

“Sorry, brother. Continue,” Rom said, tilting his head in a small reverent bow to the golden statue of the Exchequer.

 

Rom stayed silent as Quark recited the prayer and requested a few minor things beneath his breath, thanked the Exchequer for the successful week at the bar, and closed.

 

By the time Quark was finished Rom's eyelids were drooping heavily.

 

They both crawled into bed and squirmed under the weight of several warm blankets. It should have been dark and cozy but now that he was ready to sleep Rom was feeling uneasy again.

 

“Brother?” Rom whispered.

 

“What?” Quark groused, annoyed, “stop kicking me—and it's not my fault if that bowl of rock beetles you ate earlier give you gas--”

 

“Brother, if I have another nightmare, please wake me up,” Rom said.

 

“Fine, whatever, just go to sleep,” Quark said, turning over in the bed and taking half of the covers with him.

Rom stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about the sound that the finger-knives had made.

 

He had never heard something so unsettling in his life. His stomach squirmed uncomfortably. He wanted to call out to Quark again to make sure he was still really there, but he could hear Quark already breathing in sleep, which both confirmed that he was there despite Rom's anxieties, and also that Rom should not risk waking him.

 

He rolled over so their backs were towards one another and clutched his pillow like a comforting stuffed toy. He closed his eyes and thought of Moogie and songs that she used to sing to him at night when he'd been a lobeling and had difficulty sleeping.

 

Soon the comforting lullaby had lulled him to sleep, and his dream was pleasant. He was curled up on his round bed at home on Ferenginar. Outside the rains were pouring steadily. It was a familiar and soothing sound to hear the water tap-tapping on the roof and singing its own songs as it trickled down the gutters. His head was in Moogie's lap. She was seated on the edge of the bed and her gentle fingers stroked over the knobby contours of his skull.

 

“You know, son,” Moogie said, tipping her head so that the low light in the room caught on some of the bangles that hung beneath her chin, dangling from ear to decorated ear. “You've always been my favorite boy.”

 

Moogie smiled at him.

 

“I try to be a good boy, Moogie,” Rom said, leaning into her touch a bit.

 

“And you are... you're Freddy's boy,” Moogie said.

 

Rom stiffened.

 

“Who?”

 

“Moogie's boy,” she said, “certainly not your fathers.”

 

Rom grimaced. But perhaps he had just misheard her. Her touch was so soft and comforting, her voice so lovely; of course he had misheard her. He gave a sigh of relief and closed his eyes as she continued to stroke the top of his head. Her fingertips were like velvet and now and then she would tip her fingers and allow her nails to drag over the skin just lightly enough to feel nice.

 

Rom nuzzled against the top of her leg where his head was cradled... but then there was something odd. The smooth, warm, naked skin was replaced with a rough, harsh, fabric and it smelled like ash, and gasoline, and...

 

Fear gripped Rom completely as the 'fingernails' grazed over his scalp again. They weren't nails—they were cold against his skin and there was that sound again... the sound of the knives. Terrified, quaking, too shocked to even wail, Rom tipped his head up, and opened his eyes, and there was his Moogie looking down at him with her face hideously burned, twisted scars all over, her lobes melted and bubbled. A tattered brown hat sat atop her head and the gloved hand with the glinting knives dangled above him—and then they plunged down right into the top of his head.

 

Rom screamed.

 

Quark startled awake and flung himself out of the bed.

 

“Rom!” he shouted, “Rom, wake up!” He couldn't see much in the darkness and quickly called for the lights at half.

 

He wished he hadn't.

 

Rom was still screaming, his screech so high and frantic that it was painful to Quark's ears—but worst of all—Rom was spurting fountains of blood from his head.

 

“Rom! Rom!” Quark cried, and then he began to shriek in alarm too.

 

Something seemed to pull Rom out of the bed by his ankles, but as far as Quark could see, there was no one there. He fumbled for a small hand phaser he kept in a drawer beside his bed. He could barely fire one on a good day, let alone with his hands shaking as badly as they were, but he tried anyway. The bursts simply fired through to where someone could have been standing if they were pulling Rom from the bed, and left marks in the wall, and Rom's body was dragged over the floor and out of the bedroom leaving a trail of blood which was still spraying from his skull.

 

Rom had stopped shrieking.

 

“Wait! What! Rom!” Quark shouted into the darkness. In his terror any last rational thought had left him after he'd tried his weapon. He wasn't thinking of calling security, of anything really—aside from the fact that something unseen was killing his brother.

 

Quark was a coward at heart, but despite his degradation of his brother, he truly adored him and the thought of his death—especially such a gruesome one—spurred Quark out of his frozen stupor and still clutching his hand phaser he hurried towards the bedroom door.

 

He slipped in the slick of Rom's blood, staining it hot and dark on his pajamas, gagging—before sliding up to his feet again and hurrying out into the main room.

 

There he found Rom posed against his altar of the Exchequer. The lights in the room were on, glowing an eerie red, and Rom was propped against the statue stained dark with his blood, his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide and unblinking.

 

“Quark to Odo! Quark to security! Quark to—to anybody!” Quark shrieked, his voice cracking as he began to cry.

 

His computer system crackled a moment then Odo's voice came into the room.

 

“What is it, Quark?”

 

“Send... send a security team to my quarters. Now! It's Rom...” Quark backed away from the gruesome scene, and into the shadows.

 

“Your brother? Is he okay?” Odo's gruff voice asked.

“He... he's not okay, Odo. He's really not okay,” Quark cried, his voice breaking again, “he's dead.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think so far~ I'm kind of excited to do this.


End file.
